


Until we find our way in the dark and out of harm

by glitter_bitch



Series: The Stars Unaligned [1]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Body Horror, Boys In Love, Boys Kissing, Childhood Trauma, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gerry's love language is acts of service, Hands, Holding Hands, I Love You, Kissing, M/M, Minor Character Death, Moving In Together, Regarding his fucked up childhood, Rule 12 - Never Date a Co-Worker, Statement of Michael Shelley, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-03
Updated: 2020-04-08
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:22:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23466076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glitter_bitch/pseuds/glitter_bitch
Summary: Gerry followed Gertrude back to the Magnus Institute because she promised he'd find answers.Instead, he found Michael.
Relationships: Gerard Keay/Michael, Gerard Keay/Michael Shelley
Series: The Stars Unaligned [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1716685
Comments: 55
Kudos: 195





	1. Chapter 1

Don’t date your coworkers. Gerry has seen enough shitty daytime work dramas to know that that is the first rule of surviving any job. On the other hand, those dramas are abysmally heterosexual, and grasping at any straw shocking enough to get a renewal of contract for the umpteenth season. Also, none of them feature anyone quite so enchanting as tall, blonde, and anxious who is the first person to greet him as he walks into the office for the first time.

Gertrude says he’s also a transfer. Gerry doesn’t actually know where he transferred from, or if 'transferred' is just the word Gertrude uses to describe the stray assistants she picks up on her investigations. What he does know is that the man with curly blonde hair and the too long scarf is enough to make him wish he’d majored in library science if it meant the chance to see him every day. Luckily, it looked like he wouldn’t need to.

Michael, he says his name is. Michael Shelley. Gerry introduces himself in turn. He sees Gertrudes’ eyebrows dart up when he says his name is Gerry- she only knows him as Gerard- but they settle back almost instantly into her perpetual poker face. It isn’t any of her business, really, but if she disapproves of the comparatively chummy attitude, she doesn’t say so. Michael offers to show him around the building. Gerry doesn’t hesitate to accept.

It’s smaller than it looks from the outside. Though that may be because they stick mainly to the archival portion, rather than touring the whole building. The library is mostly used for research by the upstairs assistants, and you can’t even go into artifact storage without a bevy of signed forms due to “frequent accidents.” Gerry doesn’t bother to ask what he means by that. He has a pretty good idea what sort of ‘accidents’ have happened in a place like this.

Eventually they end up in the small break room, where Michael had left the kettle going on a cheap hot plate. “Tea?” he asks, “Or coffee, I don’t know your preferences. We’ve only got instant though, and it’s terrible so be warned.”

“Coffee’d be fine.”

Michael passes him the tin of grounds, and plucks a tea bag out of a cupboard for himself. In no time, they are leaning against the counter next to each other. Michael inhales the steam coming off of his cup as he waits for his tea to steep. Gerry tentatively sips his drink, and makes a face. Michael hadn’t been exaggerating.

“So this is the whole place then?”

“Basically, yeah,” Michael says. “We’ll pass Elias’s office on the way back, and then you’ll know it as well as the rest of us.” He pauses for a moment before adding, “He runs the place.”

“He any good?”

“Honestly? He’s a dick. He usually stays holed up in there, though, so it’s not too bad.” He sips his tea.

“And Gertrude? Can we trust her?”

Michael doesn’t seem taken aback by the question at all. “Probably not,” he admits, plucking the tea bag from his steaming mug and tossing it in the trash. “I’ve heard she has a history of misplacing assistants. Nothing but rumors though, and she’s fighting the good fight. I think. It gets hard to tell after a while.”

“And what about you?”

Michael laughs, and the sound is golden. “I certainly hope you can trust me. It’s been just me and Gertrude for a while and I was looking forward to the company.”

Gerry can feel his face growing hot.

“No I meant… I meant what brought you here? To the Institute.”

Michael sips his tea again. “Same as anyone, I guess. I know what’s out there, and I can’t just let myself sit by and watch it happen, you know?”

“Yeah,” Gerry says, “Me too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title taken from "Summertime" by My Chemical Romance.
> 
> All chapters should be up over the course of this week.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	2. Chapter 2

It’s two weeks later and not much has happened. Gertrude’s had them doing research, running through the horribly mismanaged files after loose ends and phone calls mostly, so there’s lots of time to spend thinking. And watching. Gerry is half-certain Michael knows how often his eyes wander from statements to something more pleasant. It’s not from distrust.

This is the first time Gertrude has sent them out together. This particular interviewee must be particularly dangerous. Or she’s trying to get rid of them. He wouldn’t put it past her. 

Gertrude stops them halfway out of the building. She hands Michael a tape recorder. “Don’t forget this again, Michael,” she says in a weary tone.

Michael grabs it and shoves it in his satchel as he walks out the door. “Thanks, mum-er Gertrude.”

The door shuts behind them with a gentle whoosh. Michael winces and his flush spreads up across his face.

“Mum?” Jerry asks, smiling.

“Oh, hush,” Michael says, and there is an unfamiliar edge to his voice.

\---

The interview goes. Not well or badly, really, just goes. No attacks like Gertrude was apparently expecting, but no new information either. Just a door barely cracked open and a cold glare from a woman none too keen to relive her trauma again, especially when nothing seemed to come of it the first time, thank you very much. The tape remains empty.

Michael is curiously quiet on the bus ride home, burying his face in that too-long scarf, and letting his loose hair fall over his face. His hands are shoved in the pockets of his peacoat. When Gerry looks a little closer, he sees his shoulders are shaking underneath the thick wool.

“You okay?” Gerry asks.

Michael takes a long time to answer. When he does, he sniffs and rubs his face. Gerry catches a glimpse of red-rimmed eyes. “No.”

Gerry waits for an explanation, but none comes. Michael’s hand clutches the edge of the bus seat, gripping it with white knuckles, as though it’s the only thing between him and oblivion. Before he can second guess himself, Gerry places his over it reassuringly. Michael looks at him out of the corner of his eye but his head doesn’t turn. After a moment’s pause, he adjusts and laces his slender fingers through Gerry’s, giving his hand a tight squeeze. 

The bus reaches the end of its route, and the walk to the Institute is crowded with people, but Michael doesn’t let go of Gerry until they reach the doors. There were some things that Gertrude would have to seek out herself if she cared to know.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	3. Chapter 3

It’s a month later, and Gerry stares at the man lying across from him in bed. He shifts closer, brushing curly blonde hair out of the way so he can pull Michael into a sweet, slow kiss.

Michael melts under his touch, responding with such tenderness it makes Gerry dizzy. He breaks the kiss after a long while with a heavenly sigh. Gerry lives for that sigh.

“You’re beautiful, angel,” he mumbles into his neck. Angel. Their little in-joke. Michael the guardian, the protector, the avenging archangel with a flaming sword. Something to keep the boogeymen away.

Michael slips a hand underneath Gerry’s shirt, resting it on his chest, and looks at him through long golden lashes.

“Gerry?”

“Yes?”

“Do you remember when you first showed up at the institute? That first question you asked me?”

“About if we could trust Gertrude?”

“No. About why I was there.”

Gerry nods.

“I think I’m ready to tell you the real answer now.”

\---

Michael tells of growing up with his mother and how she insisted the house never felt right. How she would stay up late rearranging furniture, and tearing up carpet, taking down and rehanging pictures to make it less cramped, less like a tomb hungry for warm bodies. About the day she removed every single interior wall with nothing but a claw hammer and her hands, which were torn and bleeding streams of red down her arms by the end, and still she could not stop. How she worked into the night, tossing armfuls of drywall and wood and twisted nails out the window, dead-eyed, until she finally started prying up the floorboards one by one, revealing the horrible pulsing earth underneath. The same earth that eagerly swallowed her when she finally collapsed of exhaustion. 

He tells about watching from the top of the stairs, trembling in his nightshirt as she was slowly swallowed, her pale limbs vanishing as they were sucked into the grime, and then about hearing the rumbles, like the stomach of a hungry animal, call up to him. How he stood there all night, watching the pit surge, terrified to take even one step further for fear of being eaten himself.

Michael tells of the knock at the door which finally ended the stupor, how the police eventually broke it down, and asked where his mother was and why he hadn’t been to school the past two weeks, completely ignoring the gutted house and the piles of wrecked building materials just outside. How, after telling his story to officers, and social workers, and child therapists, he had the gut-wrenching realization that no one would ever believe him. That they were all just humoring him, all just assumed his mother had taken off and left him to fend for himself.

How he still hears the floor grumbling beneath him, but now it’s in his mother’s voice.

And by the time he’s finished the story, his hands are shaking and his face is once again wet with tears, and Gerry can do nothing but hold him close, and promise he’ll keep him safe, and think of his own mother until Michael sobs himself to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> Also, thanks everyone for making this my most-subscribed-to piece! It's super cool!


	4. Chapter 4

It’s three months later, and something bad is happening. Something  _ very bad _ is happening. Gerry can almost taste the dread buzzing thick in the air when he enters the office. There is something just beyond the horizon, something unknowable, but terrible. It’s setting him on edge.

Gertrude is even more cagey than usual. She’s been locking herself up in her office for hours on end, pouring over boxes of files, and taking meticulous notes on that banged-up old laptop of hers. She rarely speaks to the two of them, but that is alright by Gerry. She’s never been one for straightforward answers, and her esotericism would likely only ramp up the unease. Besides, it gives him more time to pour over the object of his own studies.

Michael is his island in this sea of anxiety. He smiles and slides a mug across the table to him. Gerry takes a sip of the tea that Michael has finally persuaded him to drink instead of the institute’s shit coffee. It tastes sweet, but he doesn’t know if it’s the drink or if it’s just who made it for him.

Michael presses a peck to Gerry’s cheek, tracing the eyes tattooed across his knuckles with the hand not holding his own mug. Gerry gives his hand a faint squeeze before leaning down to pull their own box of files onto the table. They shouldn’t be doing this. Archival assistants weren’t supposed to do their own research without clearance, but with Gertrude essentially absent, there was no one to stop them.

Gerry spreads the statements across the table. Anything to do with pits, anything to do with hunger, anything to do with the earth. He makes a special note of any that mention books or Jurgen Leitner.

It is slow going. Michael can only read a statement or two at a time before his hands start shaking too badly to even type. Gerry wishes there was more he could do than just clutch his boyfriend’s hands tightly to his chest and mutter reassurances until the panic passes. Michael whispers gentle thank yous after each episode, and those two words hit Gerry with more weight than every lesson his mother had ever given combined.

They are in the middle of a particularly nasty one, one full of devouring vermin that Gerry is fairly certain has nothing much to do with the particular mystery they are trying to solve, but reads anyway because Michael wants to leave no stone unturned, when Gertrude appears in the doorway, her mouth a hard, thin line.

“Michael,” she says curtly, “Pack your bags. We’re leaving for Sannikov Land in the morning.”

“And where is that?” Gerry asks.

“Russia,” she replies, with just a hairline of hesitation. “Though you don’t really need to know that. I need you to stay here and hold down the fort. Keep an eye on Elias.”

It sounds like a flimsy excuse to Gerry; He could count the number of times he’s seen Elias outside of his office on one hand. But Michael smiles that bright, beautiful smile at her, and says he’ll get right on it, and what time did the flight leave, and would they be meeting here or at the airport. Gertrude drops a heavy packet of papers on the table with a thump, telling him they’ll explain everything. And just like that, she vanishes back into her office just as suddenly as she had come

\---

They leave for home early that day, walking down the crowded streets of London to Michael’s flat nearby. He needs to pack, after all, and get rest if he’s going to make the early flight tomorrow morning (there was never any other kind of flight with Gertrude), so it’s technically work, they decide. Gerry fixes dinner while Michael slowly fills a suitcase with various odds and ends. Gertrude’s trips don’t often come with a set return date, so they’ve both developed a habit of overpacking. 

Not everything goes according to plan, though. The wine flows a little more freely than it probably should, and they keep each other up far too late with soft kisses and even softer words, preemptively making up for lost time. When they finally doze off it’s long past midnight.


	5. Chapter 5

It is mere hours later when the alarm goes off, far earlier than either of them would have liked, but still they roll out of bed at it’s command. Michael pulls his fingers through the frizzy halo enveloping his head before giving up and going into the bathroom to fight it with a morning shower. His voice echoes through the flat as he sings out over the running water. Gerry can’t tell what song he’s singing, but he knows it’s his favorite.

Gerry packs him a lunch, and double checks his suitcase for him, making sure he’s bringing plenty of warm clothes. Michael laughs when he finally steps out of the bathroom, hair still damp, to see Gerry there, refolding his sweaters so there is some rhyme and reason to the packing.

They walk back to the Institute, Michael dragging that huge, red suitcase behind him, buttoned up in his peacoat against the morning chill, and that too-long scarf wrapped around his neck. Gerry shrugs his jacket closer around his shoulders, and pulls Michael closer to him by his free arm. The walk is shorter in the still hours of the morning.

Gertrude is waiting outside, impatient already, a large, old-fashioned carpet bag on the pavement beside her.

“We’re not late,” Gerry says, in response to her irritated look.

“No, but you cut it as close as you possibly could,” she replies cooly. “You’re lucky the car isn’t here yet.”

As if summoned, a sleek black cab turns the corner heading their way.

Michael bends down to give Gerry a goodbye kiss. If Gertrude is surprised, she doesn’t show it. Michael stares into Gerry’s eyes, drinking him in, before unwinding his scarf from around his neck, and wrapping it around the other’s.

“What’s this for?” Gerry asks, “I’m not the one going to Russia.”

“Just thought… well, my mother made it for me, and I’d really hate to lose it. Promise you’ll keep it safe for me?”

Gerry takes Michael’s hands in his and kisses him again. “Of course. If you promise to hurry back.”

“It’s a deal then,” Michael says, laughing that golden laugh.

He helps the driver load his suitcase into the back of the car, and opens the door to climb in.

“I love you,” Gerry says, letting the words hang in the chill morning air. Michael freezes for a fraction of a second that feels like an eternity before turning to look at him, smiling like Gerry had just fixed everything wrong with the world.

“I love you, too.”

\---

Michael waves back at him until the cab slips out of sight around the corner. Gerry stands there a moment longer and realizes that, for the first time in his life, he actually means those three words when he says them.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry

The first night without Michael, Gerry sleeps fine. An empty bed is always easier to bear when there’s an end in sight. There are no texts and no calls- Gertrude mentioned they might have bad reception or her papers did at least- but Gerry knows that Michael would have reached out if he’d been able to. This isn’t the first time Gertrude’s dragged one of them off on some adventure to the middle of nowhere, and it won’t be the last either. So Gerry waits and sleeps and does not worry.

The second night without Michael is not so easy. There’s still no word from either of them. Gerry thinks about the stories he’s heard passed around in whispers about the terrible events that may or may not have befallen past archival assistants. Gerry pulls out the scarf, and inhales deeply, taking in as much of the scent as he can. He worries a little.

The third night, Gerry lies awake far longer than he would like to. He’s been going through as many statements as he can without Michael there, taking all the important notes down. It’s his chance to get through them quickly, and answers, he figures, would make a good welcome home present. Right now though, he is wishing he’d paced himself a little more. He is worried, but not for himself. He holds the scarf a little tighter, breathing deep, and wills himself to fall asleep quickly.

He hears the sound of a key scraping into the lock and turning. He sits up in bed, relief flooding his body. “Michael?”

But it is not Michael that steps through the door. This thing cannot be Michael. It’s sort of shaped like him, but it  _ can’t be him _ . It’s too tall, its hair is too wild, and its hands are…wrong. Huge and long with far too many joints in the fingers. This is not his angel. This is something else entirely.

“Hello, Gerry,” it calls in a voice like multitudes. “I’m home.”

“You’re not Michael,” Gerry says, slowly reaching over the side of the bed with his free hand towards the crowbar he’s stored there, in case of emergency.

“What do you mean?” the creature laughs, but it’s not a golden laugh, it’s hollow and echoing. “Who else would I be?”

Gerry feels the cool reassurance of metal in his hand, and looks back to the thing. It’s staring into him with Michael’s eyes.

“What did you do with Michael?” Gerry asks dangerously, “And why are you wearing his face?”

“Gerry, this really isn’t funny,” it says, crossing the room in two long strides on its impossibly thin legs, taking a seat on the bed. The mattress sinks more than it should. “But if you give me a welcome home kiss, I’m sure I’ll forgive you.”

Gerry swings the crowbar, and it connects, but not with the thing’s skull, and not in the way he is expecting. The thing holds it in one hand, those grotesque fingers curling around and around the shaft. It looks at the crowbar, and Gerry can see waves of confusion passing over its humanoid face. It sees what its own hands look like. It drops the weapon in shock and it falls to the carpet with a dull thump. The thing’s eyes- Michael’s eyes- widen, before its face falls and it’s brows knit.

“Oh, Gerry, I’m so, so sorry,” it says, and it sounds like it means it. “I thought… I thought I made it out.” It holds up a hand and wiggles those awful fingers. “Apparently not.” It laughs again, and something like tears begin to leak out of its eyes.

Gerry has the same realization. This isn’t something pretending to be Michael. This _ is _ Michael. Or what’s left of him anyway.

The thing turns to him again, and its expression is pained and dizzying to look at. It leans forward, cupping his face in one of it’s huge, spindly hands, and kisses him with it’s too-wide mouth. Gerry’s skin and lips tingle and buzz under its touch, and its fingers get sharper the longer they hold him there. He can’t bring himself to kiss it back.

The Michael who is not Michael stands, and its head almost scrapes the ceiling now.

“Do you remember,” it asks, “that question you asked me when you arrived at the institute?”

Gerry finds his voice again. “About why you started working there?”

“No silly!” and it laughs, filling the room with the voices of a dozen. “About trusting Gertrude.”

Gerry nods, and the thing in Michael’s skin- no, just Michael- heads back towards the door. It opens it and a beam of bright golden light shoots out, illuminating the room, and casting the creature into silhouette.

“After careful consideration,” it says quietly. “I think my answer is a resounding no.” That last word echoes around the room as it shuts the door behind itself. The light vanishes, and the door quickly folds in onto itself until there is nothing left to indicate it had ever been there in the first place.

Gerry takes the scarf and winds it around his own neck as his mind races and the tears start to form in the corners of his eyes.

He doesn’t sleep that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for reading! The response to this has been incredible! I really can’t thank you enough! Wow, guys! Just wow! 
> 
> I’ve got a few ideas for this pairing in the works so stay tuned :)


End file.
